Photograph: Burden staff party (1957)

(1923-2019), psychologist

Janet Helen Shipton (née Attlee) was born in 1923 to parents Clement Richard Attlee (1883-1967) and Violet Helen Millar (1895-1964). Her father Clement, a Labour politician, served as British Prime Minister between 1945 and 1951. Janet was educated in Stanmore, London, before being evacuated to Tintagel, Cornwall during the Second World War. Later in the war, she served as a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF).

After the war, Shipton worked as a psychologist in Bristol. There, she met electrical engineer Harold ‘Shippy’ Shipton (1920-2007), who was working at the nearby Burden Neurological Institute, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. The couple married on 20 November 1947 in a wedding considered ‘the society event of the year’, with a reception at Chequers and most of the post-war Labour Cabinet in attendance.

Janet and Harold immigrated to the United States in 1958, where Harold had been offered a research associate position at the University of Iowa. While living in Iowa City, Janet became increasingly involved in community politics, playing a key role in the organisation of the Hoover Health Council and serving as Johnson County Supervisor in 1978. Shipton also served in leadership roles in the Iowa and Missouri League of Women Voters, the Missouri Women’s Network, and the Missouri Older Women’s League, focusing on issues of women’s health and voter registration.

Janet died on 13 February 2019.

(1920-2007), electrical engineer

Harold William (‘Shippy’) Shipton was born 29 September 1920. He was educated at St Michael’s School, Shrewsbury and Shrewsbury Technical College, before joining the Royal Air Force in 1939. During the Second World War, Shipton’s worked as an electrical engineer in a secret project developing night-fighter radar.

After the Second World War, Shipton joined the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. Shipton was part of the team responsible for developing electroencephalographic (EEG, related to the measurement of the electrical activity of the brain) equipment under the direction of neurophysiologist William Grey Walter (1910-1977). While working at the Burden, he met his wife, Janet Helen Attlee (1923-), a psychologist at a local hospital. The couple married on 20 November 1947 in a wedding considered ‘the society event of the year’ due to a reception at Chequers held by Janet’s father, then-Prime Minister Clement Attlee (1883-1967).

The Shiptons immigrated to the United States in 1958, where Harold had been offered a research associate position at the University of Iowa. There, he continued his EEG research, developing a multichannel toposcopic display system in the early 1960s. In 1963, he became director of the Medical Electronics Laboratory in Iowa, before becoming Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University, St Louis, in 1979. He retired in 1989, but continued working in the field of brain research, including collaborations with NASA on experiments investigating the measurement of brain activity.

The couple moved to Utah following Harold’s diagnosis with Parkinson’s Disease in the early 2000s. He died on 9 April 2007.

(1877-1968), neuropsychiatrist

Frederick Lucien Golla was born in Fulham, London on 11 August 1877 to Italian parents Peter Alexander Evasio Golla and Alice Amelia Tingey. He was educated at Tonbridge School and Magdalen College, Oxford, before pursuing medical training at St George’s Hospital, London. He graduated in 1904 and became resident medical officer at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, under surgeon Victor Horsley (1857-1916) and neurologist Gordon Holmes (1876-1965), where he began to pursue research into the human nervous system.

During the First World War, Golla volunteered for field ambulance duty with the Royal Army Medical Corps in August 1914 and was invalided out of the army after contracting bronchial pneumonia in June 1915. In August 1915, he returned to the Royal Army Medical Corps and rose to the rank of captain. His wartime research on tetanus was widely celebrated, leading to his post-war promotion to consultant physician at St George’s Hospital, where he worked on nervous conduction with neurophysiologist Charles Scott Sherrington (1857-1952).

In 1923, Golla was appointed director of the Central Pathological Laboratory at the Maudsley Hospital, London. As well as controlling the educational programme of the Maudsley Hospital medical school, Golla continued to conduct research with junior colleagues. In the 1930s, he collaborated with neurophysiologist William Grey Walter (1910-1977) in pioneering studies of electroencephalography (EEG, the measurement of the electrical activity of the brain), including the first detection of a cerebral tumour using the technique in 1936.

In 1939, Golla was invited to become director of the new Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. Under Golla’s direction, the Burden achieved several ‘firsts’ in British psychiatry, including the first trials of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) in 1939 and the first leucotomy (lobotomy) in 1941. He retired from the Burden in 1959.

Golla was married twice, first to Thérèse d'Haussaire in 1908, who fatally contracted bronchial pneumonia while nursing Golla back to health in 1915, and then to Yvonne Lilly Brisco Ray in 1919. He had one daughter, Yolande Golla, who would later co-author research at the Burden Neurological Institute. Golla died of heart failure on 6 February 1968.

(1910-1977), neurophysiologist

William Grey Walter (also known as Grey Walter) was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on 19 February 1910 to journalist parents Karl Wilhelm Walter (1880-1965) and Minerva (Margaret) Lucrezia Hardy (1879-1953). The Walter family moved from the United States to Britain in 1915, where William remained for the rest of his life. He was educated at Westminster School (1922-1928), before taking the Natural Science Tripos at King’s College, Cambridge (1928-1931). He went on to pursue postgraduate research on nerve physiology and conditioned reflexes, gaining his MA in 1935.

After completing his MA, Walter was invited to work at the Central Pathological Laboratory of the Maudsley Hospital, London, under neuropsychiatrist Frederick Lucien Golla (1877-1968). Since the late 1920s, Golla had become increasingly interested in the clinical applications of the burgeoning field of electroencephalography (EEG), the measurement of the electrical activity of the brain via electrodes placed on the scalp. Noting his skill in technical matters, Golla encouraged Walter to develop increasingly sophisticated EEG devices, and supported his application for a Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship to visit the Jena laboratory of German physiologist Hans Berger (1873-1941), widely credited as the founder of electroencephalography. Walter went on to achieve several key ‘firsts’ in electroencephalography, including the first detection of a cerebral tumour using the technique in 1936. Between 1936 and 1939, Walter expanded his research programme and took readings from hundreds of patients, focusing particularly on the electrical patterns of epilepsy.

In 1939, Golla was invited to become director of the new Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders, and invited Walter to become director of the Institute’s Physiology Department. At the Burden, Walter further developed his EEG apparatus, developing the automatic frequency analyser and the toposcope in 1943 and 1950 respectively. His research programme also became increasingly ambitious, with investigations into the cerebral effects of stroboscopic light beginning in 1947 and, later, the discovery of ‘contingent negative variation’ (CNV, or the ‘expectancy wave’) in the 1960s. Walter also played a key role in the professionalization of electroencephalography during this period, co-founding the journal Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology and organising meetings of the EEG Society (1943-1989).

Outside of his clinical work, Walter became a key figure in early British cybernetics, the study of feedback, control, and communication systems in humans and machines that synthesised approaches from engineering, biology, and mathematics. He co-founded the Ratio Club, an informal dining and discussion group which provided a key social outlet for cybernetic enthusiasts, which met between 1949 and 1955. He also built several cybernetic devices in his spare time, the most famous of which were his robotic tortoises, or Machina Speculatrix, designed to function as simple models of the adaptable human brain. These received national attention when they were exhibited on television in 1950 and at the Festival of Britain in 1951. He also became a prolific public intellectual, writing 170 scientific publications, serving as an expert witness in court courses, appearing frequently on the BBC, and writing an immensely popular non-specialist text on his neuroscientific work, The Living Brain (1953). His work also gained a surprising popularity among counter-cultural artists during the 1950s and 1960s, including Beat writers William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, who saw Walter’s research as part of a broader investigation of human consciousness.

Walter was married twice, first to Katharine Monica Ratcliffe in 1934 and then to Vivian Joan Dovey (1915-1980) in 1947, with whom he had one son, Timothy Walter (1949-1976). Walter and Dovey separated in 1960 and divorced in 1973. After their separation, Walter lived with Lorraine Josephine Aldridge (née Donn) until 1972. In 1970, Walter suffered severe brain damage following a road accident, forcing him to retire from full-time research work. He died of a heart attack in 1977.

(1920-1987), neuropsychiatrist

Henry James (Harry) Crow was educated at Aberdeen University following a successful career in the Royal Air Force as a navigator, a role for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross. After qualifying in medicine, Crow took up a post as neurosurgical houseman at the Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, where he developed a lifelong interest in neuropsychiatric research. In 1956, he became a consultant at the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. He later became the Burden’s Clinical Director, a post which he retained until his retirement.

Crow’s clinical practice and research focused on the treatment of epilepsy and anxiety conditions. He also played a key role in developing the Burden’s EEG department alongside neurophysiologist William Grey Walter (1910-1977). He was a founding member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, becoming a Fellow in 1971 and later Chairman of the South Western Division.

Crow died on 10 May 1987.

neuroscientist, active 1970s-1980s

Ray Cooper is a retired British neuroscientist. Between 1971 and 1988, he served as Scientific Director of the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. His research at the Burden covered a variety of neuroscientific topics, including electroencephalography, brain injury, slow cortical potentials, and visual processing. He also wrote a history of the Burden’s first fifty years with his colleague Jonathan Bird, which was published in 1989.